Studio

Our first project this semester is titled 'Skins and Sculls' and we are asked to 'consider the nature of enclosure and threshold in the design of a small building to serve two clients : Socrates Sculpture Park and the Long Island City Community Boathouse.' The site is located adjacent to the Sculpture Park in Queens and is supposed to be thought of a filter between the Park and the waterfront, mediating and regulating view, movement, and in habitation through the membrane of it's perimeter. The assigned program includes boat storage, bicycle rental, cafe, function space / event space and is focused on surface systems. Time 3Weeks.

My critic is Jennifer Leung, whom very much has a Princeton pedagogical precision in her ways which I have to say I'm really pleased with. She thinks about architecture quite differently than I do, [i'd say i'm comparable to a schizophrenic ball of chaos always doing a million things at once] so her very critical understanding of architecture I find really enjoyable thus far. I have to admit, I think all of the critics this year are pretty great so it should be a great semester.

It's always difficult to describe my thought processes in general, especially in conjunction with the overwhelming nature that year one is impressing upon us all. I'm just one step behind life right now, but in any attempt I prefer to simply write as descriptive as I can and anyone is free to read any concept/idea/etc they may wish into the project. I abhor the idea of a singular conceptual paradigm [often to the detriment of clarity in my design process] but I suppose this is just a result of who I am....anyways my project.

I'm thinking about resultant processes, parametrics, complexity, Theo Jansen, Hans Bellmer, land value [Manhattan to Queens], the difference in individual modes of transportation of the program [bike / kayak] compared to how the bike travels the street infrastructure where the kayak is free to land at any boathouse, how to cross lines [national boarders, economic boarders, social boarders], the virtual move of social exchange or rather the ability to carry your friends around in your iPhone, DaVinci's drawings of weaponry, art galleries as objects for urban change, and mass customization...

1. i use 'barcodes' all the time, good way to create patterns, imply gutters on your building if the model's at the right scale, demarcate interior/exterior...etc etc etc.

2. mass customization is essentially a market based strategy of producing products for an individual at the efficiency of mass production. more or less, it's an economic method of providing specifically customized products using mass production methods...i'm fairly certain it was Jeep who originally began using the production method's when they retrofitted their factories such that no two Jeep's produced in a given day from a factory would be exact. Although it could have been someone else who did it first, but history of economic production isn't my interest.